Civil rights activists draw tears, cheers at Allentown event

Stories that Shaped a Nation

Stories that Shaped a Nation

Christy PotterSpecial to The Morning Call

Iconic women speak at civil rights event in Allentown

Their stories were chilling — years in prison for crimes they didn't commit, beatings at the hands of law enforcement, seeing loved ones killed and injustices compounding before their very eyes. Their cause: civil rights.

The women who spoke Sunday evening as part of the "Stories That Shaped a Nation" event at the Renaissance Hotel in Allentown are icons of the nation's civil rights movement, and many of their stories have never been recorded before this weekend, at the event organized to honor their contribution.

From the woman who helped Martin Luther King Jr. organize the 1965 voting rights marches in Selma, Ala., to the daughter of actress and activist Ruby Dee, from writers, professors and congressional representatives to relatives of those whose deaths are now synonymous with the civil rights movement, the women who spoke had the crowd alternately dabbing away tears and getting to their feet to cheer.

Sunday's panel discussion was part of a two-day celebration organized by The Freedom Memorial of the Lehigh Valley on what would have been Coretta Scott King's 88th birthday. The Kings are memorialized with a statue at Fourth and Union streets in Allentown — the only statue anywhere that includes her standing beside him.

It was just one example of the women who played a major role in the civil rights movement finally taking their moment in the spotlight.

"What we do with our time sets the tone for future generations," said New York congresswoman Yvette Clarke, who was the event's honorary co-chairwoman alongside Ohio congresswoman Marcia Fudge. "While we're proud of the men and the leadership they provided, alongside them, or sometimes ahead of them, were women, making a difference."

Stories that Shaped a Nation held Sunday at the Renaissance Hotel in Allentown

(Chris Shipley/The Morning Call)

California congresswoman Maxine Waters had the crowd on its feet several times with her stories of her careerlong crusade for civil rights, from fighting to get controversial Los Angeles police Chief Daryl Gates out of office to her work as a national lawmaker.

"It doesn't matter where it is in the world — racism and discrimination is wrong and it must be dealt with," Waters said. "We must be committed to the proposition that this country belongs to all of us. I get so disgusted with my colleagues in Congress that some nights I go to sleep wondering why I'm doing this. But after a good night's sleep, I'm ready to take them all on," she said, to a standing ovation.

Speaking from her wheelchair, 103-year-old Amelia Boynton Robinson talked at length about her upbringing that led to her active role in the march on Selma. Robinson, whose brutal beating on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma became one of iconic images of the civil rights movement, said she remembered when women were given the right to vote. But, she said, that right was only given to white women.

"They didn't think of us as women," she said. "We were nothing because of the color of our skin."

Robinson said she heeded the "still small voice" of God in her head when she determined to make a difference and fight for equal rights for all.

"All of us have stories to tell," she said. "Hopefully somebody somewhere will pick them up and decide they will walk the walk and talk the talk."

Tinnie Renee McMurry, a cousin of Coretta Scott King, said she was mentored by the late activist, who taught her that the only way to fail was "to give in to the demands of oppression."

"Her parents never let their daughters avoid doing things because they were girls," McMurry said. "She often marched beside her husband, and sometimes spoke in his absence. We know women helped organize and lead the movement, but they were largely unrecognized. Women were the backbone of the whole civil rights movement."

Cheers turned to tears when relatives of Emmett Till took the podium. Fourteen-year-old Till was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly flirting with a white woman. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobely, requested his casket be open to show the brutality of his murder. His death is considered the event that mobilized the civil rights movement.

Airickca Gordon-Taylor and her mother, Ollie Gordon, represented honoree Till-Mobely, who died in 2003.

"Victims of racially motivated crimes are the stories that are shaping our nation today," Gordon-Taylor said. "Not only are they getting away with murder but the victims are too often depicted in the media as being deserving of their fate."

She called racial profiling "a relative of Jim Crow," a sentiment that was echoed throughout the event. Others called it "racial terrorism."

Ericka Huggins, an activist, former political prisoner, and founder of the Black Panthers was 15 when she went to the March on Washington against her parents' wishes.

Her experience that day led her to vow that she would serve people for the rest of her life — a life that went on to include two years as a political prisoner and being widowed after her husband and fellow Black Panther leader, John, was gunned down on the campus of UCLA. "I had no idea what would unfold in the fabric of my life. My entire life has been cutting through the boxes I was told I should stay in and encouraging others to break out of those boxes. All of these black men and women who are being killed — it has to stop. And it's up to you. Not somebody else. There is no somebody else."

Hasna Muhammad, daughter of the late Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, said she was "parented into the struggle."

"My sister, my brother and I had our picket signs. We went on marches. My brother got arrested. That was the tenor of our home. At the dining room table, we had conversations about the things that have been mentioned here today. We talked about what we had to do. My parents would ask us what we were going to do to make a difference, and we had to answer. It was real. It's no wonder the full expression of myself as an activist is being expressed now during this resurgence of Jim Crow terrorism."

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, said she does not consider herself an icon of the civil rights movement, but was around many icons as she was growing up — including the Kings. Martin Luther King Jr. often preached at her church.

"I will never forget seeing and hearing him preach," she said. "He would go to the back of the church after he preached and us young people would be able to go up and shake his hand. I grew up around these icons and had no idea they'd become important. None."